Thursday, May 8, 2014

Back to Photograph--well sorta

A lot of my photographic friends do boudoir photography.
It’s what I used to call glamor or pinup but with a lot of twenty-first
century sexuality thrown in. I don’t do boudoir, don’t want to. Love to
photograph people. Would love to do some nude photography—something that I gave
up on many years ago due to marital objections. That was probably just as good
because the thought of photographing a nude female scares the pejebers out of
me anyway. It is not that I am afraid of a nude female, it is that I am afraid
that I really do not have anything of value to add to the work of the thousands
of photographers before me. Few photographers do the female nude well and I
wouldn’t wish to do it if I could not do it well—the subject matter deserves
that. Actually, I think I could do it well—but then again I think I do
everything well, even pretending to be somewhat modest about my talents.

I think some of my friends do not understand my reluctance
to join one of the many meet up groups in Houston that specialize in boudoir
photography.

Tonight at dinner I was reading Sketching Light by
Joe McNally. Joe is a more ‘instructional’ writer than I normally read but he
is good enough to be inspirational, so I read what he writes. In the chapter
Finding Faces, Joe hits the nail on the head as to why I don’t wish to do
boudoir or, as I have just recently learned a new term for our new age—dudeoir.
Ain’t that clever. It is much too long to quote but I wish some of my friends
would take the opportunity to read all of that chapter.

“The camera plays the role of an ardent, earnest, proper
suitor. This process could be termed a seduction, but it’s a delicate,
hesitant, and respectful one. Like any relationship worth a damn, the whole
thing has to be handled delicately—like a treasured Christmas ornament. Many of
the pix out there on the internet are such a no-frills, in your face slam dunk
of plastic sexiness that the creator with his camera seems not to be an
inquisitive interested gentleman, but more like a drunk at a bar siding up to a
hot chick and blurting out, “Wanna boff?” Charming eh?”

“Well, to turn a time honored phrase around a bit, pretty
or hot or sexy is nice, but it sure isn’t interesting. Or different. Or fun to
shoot, necessarily. It might be all steamy and sweaty, and the gyrating photo
subject/gymnast out there on the seamless might indeed be working it, but after
a few dozen of these you start to realize it’s really more about exercise than
thoughtful photography. And trust me, I’m as guilty as anyone in this regard.
Photographing an attractive person is better than a poke in the eye with a
sharp stick, right? You could do worse than shooting a hot, young, ripped, cut,
bouncing full-lipper, sloe-eyed, brassiere-busting package of youthful hormones
stuffed into skin that has been a lot of loofah time.” [please do not ask
me what loofah is. I do not know.]

“Sometimes, though, when confronted with this type of
energetic scenario—and maybe I am just getting old—I actually want the person
to stop. Please, just stop and look at me, and consequently, the camera. Do
thoughtful. Look away. Remember something important. Look at me like you know
something I don’t, and these pictures are a series of questions you answer, a
little at a time, giving me dollops of knowledge about you and your life, but
not all at once. Like an investigative reporter, the camera seeks, and it is
quite content with snippets that can be put together later. Let’s just take
this a pixel at a time, shall we?”

Joe goes on, you would think writing out my thoughts
exactly. The only thing that he doesn’t mention, which I feel is extremely
important—give me a person in front of the camera that has experienced life, someone that has truly experienced a relationship, has truly felt love
and made love not just got it on--someone that has something to give to the
camera, to the experience—something to share that is worth sharing. Not someone
just barely out of diapers. Give me someone that can do more than spinal
contortions and pouty lips; that can only pretend to be desirable because it
would work in the back seat on some country road with a sixteen year old. Then
I might have found a model that I could photograph and enjoy photographing.